Thursday, October 23, 2014

Attending a taping for Austin City Limits Television is always a special experience. I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to attend these performances and it is not something I take for granted. Last night I had the chance to see Ryan Adams' perforn for the 40th season of ACL TV and it was magical. It was such a unique experience that there were moments that felt completely surreal. Before the performance, all of the house music was theme songs to television shows. I didn't think much of it when the theme to Fresh Prince of Bel Air was playing but when I returned from getting a drink and noticed that the theme from Doogie Howser M.D. was on the PA, it was clear that Ryan Adams was fucking with us. Get it? ACL is a TV show.

The stage was set for an acoustic performance. There was a stool, with a guitar mic and a vocal mic on a stand alongside a decorative table, which had a little lamp and a votive candle. On the other side of the stage, there was a similar microphone setup for a standing performance. Behind the stool there were 4 acoustic guitars on stands. As is tradition, the show's executive producer came out to greet the crowd and give us a little preview of what was about to happen, complete with the "put your phone away" rule. We were told that Adams was planning an acoustic set followed by an electric set. I had heard rumblings of this already but was very excited to hear the rumors were true.

Adams ambled on the stage around 8pm to little fanfare, he acknowledged the audience with a little wave of one hand while holding a cup of hot tea in the other. He was dressed like he just came from the photo shoot for his latest album cover. Tight denim pants, tight denim jacket with a vintage tee complete with unkempt hair. I wish I had a transcript of the speeches last night because there were many and they were fantastic. Adams was witty, self-deprecating and very relaxed. He chatted with the crowd, sharing quirky tidbits of stories, which may or may not have actually inspired his songs.

When the acoustic set started there was a moment when I thought to myself, that I don't know if I've ever heard such quiet from such a large number of people. Part of what makes the ACL TV atmosphere so special is the reverence for the moment in time in which this performance is taking place. It's a concert but it's not just any concert. No one has their phones out, people are drinking but the bars inside the venue were not operational during the performance.

I don't know a lot about microphones or musical equipment but the mics being used reminded me of old radio announcer microphones. Those square mics that you see on David Letterman's desk. Whatever that style is allowed Adams to stand back away from the mic itself, with the added reverb it gave the vocals an amazingly ethereal floating texture that added to the overall transcendence of the experience. At one point between songs Adams joked that he needs the reverb to help him deal with the sound of his own voice. He also made several quips referring to how depressing his songs are, even alluding/suggesting that they could be the perfect soundtrack for anti-depression pharmaceuticals.

The opening set weaved together songs, jokes, stories, on-stage guitar tuning, inappropriate humor, crowd interaction and advice to young fans into a 70-minute performance piece. There were many mentions of how cold the room was as well, which relates to all of the guitar tuning. Adams suggested that guitar strings & penises react similarly in cold environments. Hence, why his guitars kept going out of tune. A fact, which I'm sure bothered Mr. Adams more than it bothered his audience.

Adams also singled-out, former No Depression editor and current Austin American-Statesman writer, Peter Blackstock during both is acoustic and electric sets. My sources tell me that Adams and Blackstock have a great relationship but based on a few of Adams' comments, it seems as though he still hasn't forgotten a review of Gold that Mr. Blackstock wrote many years ago. Don't get me wrong, the comments were not hostile but the ribbing was consistent. During the electric set, Adams actually false-started a song when he noticed Blackstock yawning. He stopped the tune and suggested that Blackstock join him in a jog the following morning to see who's yawning then.

During an acoustic cover of Bryan Adams' Run To You, a fan started laughing at the absurdity of Ryan Adams covering Bryan Adams. Adams turned toward that side of the crowd mid-song and remarked that he took this cover very seriously before launching into the chorus again. That cover ended the acoustic set around 9:15pm. There was a 20-minute break while the stage was reset for the electric set.

The lead single from Ryan Adams' eponymous new LP, Gimme Something Good, was the only song that appeared in both sets. It was great to hear the two interpretations of the song, the acoustic one pleading while the electric one felt more demanding. Even though Adams was joined by a full 4-piece band for the second set, it still felt like his show. This was not Adams' more jam-y backing band, The Cardinals. The backing band for his electric set was dubbed, The Shining, which is a group of four incredible session players (including L.A.-based Mike Viola) who pushed out incredibly tight renditions of all the songs you'd want to hear at a Ryan Adams show.

The photo I posted of the set lists isn't entirely accurate. The acoustic set was slightly rearranged and a song or two was eliminated, but Adams curated a set list that spanned his solo career flawlessly. Another special crowd moment came at the conclusion of When the Stars Go Blue when Adams noticed, Austin artist and personal friend, Nakia wiping tears from his eyes in the front row. He asked, "Are you crying bro?" When Nakia nodded in affirmation, Adams said, "I've gotta give you a hug." He walked toward the front of the stage and Nakia did too and they hugged it out. Adams mentioned that the display of emotion meant a lot to him and then he made a self-deprecating joke about not have feelings himself.

In a way last night's stage banter highlights were just as interesting/important to the experience as the song performance moments. It felt like Ryan Adams was hosting us. He wasn't content to simply go down a set list and crank out the tunes. He wanted to tell us which Doctor Who was his favorite (number 4) and how some of his songs sound like certain Scritti Politti songs or how a friend's drunken off-handed remark about members of REM having grey (or greying) pubes inspired a lyric. He talked about how he doesn't drink anymore and when he did he was an asshole. He poked fun at his reputation for being difficult to work with. Adams recounted a conversation between himself and his longtime manager when he was at his worst. He asked his manager why he even wanted to manage him to which he responded, "Because I like a challenge." Then he dedicated a song to the manager, while simultaneously suggesting that it would be too soft rock for Anne Murray. The song in question was Desire from Adams' Demolition.

It's hard for me to nail down "set highlights" because Ryan Adams music is so personal for every listener. My highlights were all songs that meant the most to me and I'm sure your highlights would be the same. I can tell you that I've been singing Gimme Something Good, Fix It & Come Pick Me Up all day but I can also tell you that My Winding Wheel & Sweet Carolina brought tears to my eyes.

With three and half hours worth of material, I'll be curious to see how last night's experience will be packaged for television. Part of me thinks that Adams did the two separate sets so he could scrap his least favorite completely. There are also songs that have lyrical content that wouldn't be suitable for PBS, songs that had a story or comment to the audience in the middle and even a song with a guitar tune in the middle of it. In other words, the majority of what happened last night will never resurface for a television audience and that's ok with me because I was lucky enough to be there. If you weren't there last night, you're still in for a treat when Ryan Adams and Jenny Lewis share an hour of television on your local PBS station in the fall/winter.

By the way, I never mentioned it but in the photo of the set lists the numbered one (on the right) was the intended acoustic set and the other is the electric set. As I mentioned a song or two was stricken and/or played in a different order from the acoustic set but I believe the electric set is fully accurate.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Y'all, I feel like such a bonehead. I had the extraordinary pleasure to attend Sam Smith's performance for Austin City Limits Television, on the eve of Weekend One of ACL Festival (pictured above). The lovely Mr. S. was kind enough to wrote a beautiful review, which I left in the blog queue unpublished. So, while this isn't super-timely, it's still a great review and it was still an amazing experience, which you'll be able to watch on your local PBS station within the next few months!

Disclosure teamed up with Sam Smith back in late 2012 to release "Latch" in the UK and, at the time, it was just another great dance tune from overseas with an unknown vocalist that was unlikely to make waves stateside. What a strange, long trip it's been. "Latch" eventually started to earn radio airplay here in the US early this year and it eventually peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. It helped Disclosure establish themselves as artists and producers to watch and was the perfect set up to introduce American audiences to Mr. Smith. By the time his solo debut album "In The Lonely Hour" came out in here in July, it entered the album charts at number 2 and gave him a much higher profile than the electronic duo.

It didn't hurt that Smith has remained dedicated to breaking the US market by doing countless press interviews, tour dates and television appearances. Hitting town for the Austin City Limits festival, he dropped by the Moody Theater to record an episode for ACL's 40th season on PBS this fall. Backed by a 5-piece band and 3 powerful backing vocalists, Smith powered through a full set of tunes from his debut record and even threw a few choice covers into the mix.

Austin Bloggy & I had heard a rumor that he was feeling a little under the weather before the taping began, but if that was true it was completely undetectable from an audience member's point of view. Things kicked off with "Nirvana" and "Together." We've been lucky to attend several recent tapings and the energy from the crowd was palpable, much higher and excited than other recent audiences. It reflected how lucky everybody felt to be seeing an artist on the rise in such a big way, with the talent to match the success. It was also fun to see several children in crowd, including several families with young girls who were singing along to all the songs, in the front row.

"It is so hot here. My English skin can't handle this," he exclaimed. While I'm not attending the festival until next weekend, he must have flat-out melted on the festival stage the following day! Before heading into more tunes, he discussed "In The Lonely Hour" and how it had already changed his life so much. Last year, he was working in a British pub where his tasks included cleaning the bathrooms.

Now, he's touring the world in perfectly tailored suits and singing songs of unrequited love that connect with listeners from all backgrounds and orientations through the universality of the lyrics. Even though Smith is an out gay man, his tracks are more ambiguous (at least so far). As a gay man myself, I suppose the only thing that made me cringe a little was during a cover of Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know" - when the word "boy" is more innocuously replaced by "you." Something so small, if left in place, could actually become a powerful statement. Instead, it's softened a little bit and I can't help but feel as though that is to not offend a broader audience. Maybe, at the end of the day, that is truly progress after all?

The set pushed into more upbeat territory after Smith confessed that, like with the work of Ms. Houston, he really only listens to female divas when he has music on in his personal life. That made his perfect mash-up of "Money On My Mind" with the added chorus of CeCe Peniston's "Finally" all the more confessional. Things appeared to be over after a too-brief 9 songs, but then Smith and the band returned for an encore that kicked off with his slower arrangement of "Latch," which appears as a bonus track on the Deluxe Edition of his debut record.

Not surprisingly, the performance ended with the song that solidified his success as a solo artist here in America. "Stay With Me" peaked at number two on the US singles charts and has become one of the year's biggest singles. As it started, the crowd rose to its feet and sang along with every word. It's safe to say that this won't be the last time that Smith graces the Austin City Limits stage. We're already looking forward to his next visit.

A broadcast date has not yet been set for Sam Smith's performance, but it will air this fall on PBS as part of the 40th Season of Austin City Limits, airing locally on KLRU.

Setlist:
Nirvana
Together
Leave Your Lover
I'm Not The Only One
Restart
How Will I Know
Good Thing
Lay Me Down
Money On My Mind/Finally
Latch
Make It To Me
Stay With Me